After working as a substitute teacher in a primary school, he followed his rival Shigeru Aoki to Tokyo. He studied Western painting at the Fudosha and at the Pacific Painting Association’s institute, and in 1921 travelled to France, where he enrolled at the Académie Colarossi. Afterwards he kept his distance from the central art world and held throughout his life to a lofty manner of his own. Member of the National Fine Arts Association; founding member of the Nika-kai. He received the Mainichi Art Prize and the Asahi Prize, and the Order of Culture. He died in 1969 at Yame in Fukuoka Prefecture, where his studio was.